"Benghazi" Trey Gowdy gets an earful...

[hello]

"We don't want people who are biased on the FBI! We just want people who will support Trump and the GOP in whatever they do, no matter the law, and who are willing put Democrats in prison, no matter if they actually did anything worthy of sentencing!"

[heironymouspasparagus]

"We don't want people who are biased on the FBI! We just want people who will support Trump and the GOP in whatever they do, no matter the law, and who are willing put Democrats in prison, no matter if they actually did anything worthy of sentencing!"

That too...

[cannon_fodder]

Am I missing something from this "story?"  As I understand it, some FBI agents whined about their political preferences on "company" phones.  In this instance, they didn't like Donald Trump and they said so.  Appropriately, an investigation took place to see if the political preference of these agents caused any bias in the actions of the FBI. A ~year long investigation produced hundreds of pages of reports that basically said - no, the actions of the FBI were not influenced by these agent's politics.

Is there  actually an issue that we are trying to resolve?

[Hoss]

Am I missing something from this "story?"  As I understand it, some FBI agents whined about their political preferences on "company" phones.  In this instance, they didn't like Donald Trump and they said so.  Appropriately, an investigation took place to see if the political preference of these agents caused any bias in the actions of the FBI. A ~year long investigation produced hundreds of pages of reports that basically said - no, the actions of the FBI were not influenced by these agent's politics.

Is there  actually an issue that we are trying to resolve?

They typically call this 'ginning up the base'.

[erfalf]

Am I missing something from this "story?"  As I understand it, some FBI agents whined about their political preferences on "company" phones.  In this instance, they didn't like Donald Trump and they said so.  Appropriately, an investigation took place to see if the political preference of these agents caused any bias in the actions of the FBI. A ~year long investigation produced hundreds of pages of reports that basically said - no, the actions of the FBI were not influenced by these agent's politics.

Is there  actually an issue that we are trying to resolve?

Not exactly the sentiment of the IG report...

"We were deeply troubled by text messages sent by Strzok and Page that potentially indicated or created the appearance that investigative decisions were impacted by bias or improper considerations,"

In summary I think they tried to wrap it all up and say that bias did not play a part. But upon detailed review, they essentially leave it open by not saying one way or the other.

[swake]

Not exactly the sentiment of the IG report...

In summary I think they tried to wrap it all up and say that bias did not play a part. But upon detailed review, they essentially leave it open by not saying one way or the other.

How about we take more then just one sentence out of context? Here's the full summary section on the text messages and bias.

In undertaking our analysis, our task was made
significantly more difficult because of text and instant
messages exchanged on FBI devices and systems by
five FBI employees involved in the Midyear
investigation. These messages reflected political
opinions in support of former Secretary Clinton and
against her then political opponent, Donald Trump.
Some of these text messages and instant messages
mixed political commentary with discussions about the
Midyear investigation, and raised concerns that political
bias may have impacted investigative decisions.
In particular, we were concerned about text messages
exchanged by FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page, Special Counsel to the Deputy
Director, that potentially indicated or created the
appearance that investigative decisions were impacted
by bias or improper considerations. As we describe in
Chapter Twelve of our report, most of the text
messages raising such questions pertained to the
Russia investigation, which was not a part of this

review. Nonetheless, the suggestion in certain Russia-
related text messages in August 2016 that Strzok might

be willing to take official action to impact presidential
candidate Trump's electoral prospects caused us to
question the earlier Midyear investigative decisions in
which Strzok was involved, and whether he took specific
actions in the Midyear investigation based on his
political views. As we describe Chapter Five of our
report, we found that Strzok was not the sole
decisionmaker for any of the specific Midyear
investigative decisions we examined in that chapter.
We further found evidence that in some instances
Strzok and Page advocated for more aggressive
investigative measures in the Midyear investigation,
such as the use of grand jury subpoenas and search
warrants to obtain evidence.
There were clearly tensions and disagreements in a
number of important areas between Midyear agents and
prosecutors. However, we did not find documentary or
testimonial evidence that improper considerations,
including political bias, directly affected the specific
investigative decisions we reviewed in Chapter Five, or
that the justifications offered for these decisions were
pretextual.
Nonetheless, these messages cast a cloud over the
FBI's handling of the Midyear investigation and the
investigation's credibility. But our review did not find
evidence to connect the political views expressed in
these messages to the specific investigative decisions
that we reviewed; rather, consistent with the analytic
approach described above, we found that these specific
decisions were the result of discretionary judgments
made during the course of an investigation by the
Midyear agents and prosecutors and that these
judgment calls were not unreasonable.

[erfalf]

The summary doesn't exactly contextualize the details. Sorry bud.

[BKDotCom]

The summary doesn't exactly contextualize the details. Sorry bud.

The summary, by definition, is not the details.   The summary is the ELI5 summary..   
"We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative decisions we reviewed in Chapter Five"

[swake]

The summary doesn't exactly contextualize the details. Sorry bud.

No, it does. I just don't think you know what "contextualize" means.

[heironymouspasparagus]

The summary doesn't exactly contextualize the details. Sorry bud.

Not trying to sound very harsh here, but how is it you don't understand that...?    Yeah, they are biased, they don't like Trump, and it had no effect on the investigation. 


Just like Gowdy realized last week with his fantasy Congressional investigation league event.  This truly is not rocket science.  And outside the Fake Fox News Rose colored diffusion/deflection glasses filter, it's easily understood.

[erfalf]

Not trying to sound very harsh here, but how is it you don't understand that...?    Yeah, they are biased, they don't like Trump, and it had no effect on the investigation.  


Just like Gowdy realized last week with his fantasy Congressional investigation league event.  This truly is not rocket science.  And outside the Fake Fox News Rose colored diffusion/deflection glasses filter, it's easily understood.

The summary by definition attempts to compile sometimes unrelated details in a succinct single point. Sometimes that means you have to generalize. How is this so hard to understand? This is like arguing over the definition of is. But when you so viccerally hate Trump, I guess you can just overlook all the cases of potential bias and chalk it up to nothing.

[erfalf]

In addition, the IG from the start would not draw firm conclusions as to why things happened, just if what did happen was against policy. In other words, they aren't trying to decide whether each decision was correct (biased potentially), just whether or not each action was defensible.

Did Strzok make the "optimal" decisions, in other words, decisions unbiased. Well, the IG didn't really report on that. The IG just reported that bias did not cause the FBI to make irrational decisions. That hardly means that bias did not play a part in the investigative decisions. It's linguistic gymnastics, but that's how things role in D.C.

[cannon_fodder]

Okay, so it appears everyone agrees that there was no evidence presented or conclusion reached that any political opinion influenced the actions of the FBI.  Everyone agrees that the FBI agents expressed a political opinion opposed to Trump.

So the disagreement is how we receive the information:

- Heironymous is saying that the conclusion stands at face value.  There was no evidence or conclusion that the personal bias of the FBI agents influenced any action or decision. The decisions reached and actions taken were all rational and within protocol.

- erfalf is saying that the investigation failed to prove the negative (saying there is no evidence or conclusion is not saying that bias had no influence), so therefore it remains a possibility that rational decisions were still influenced by bias.


I remain really confused. Everyone seems to agree that there is no evidence indicating the FBI did anything inappropriate.  The probe has already resulted in indictments and guilty pleas. Trump won the electoral college and is the sitting President.  The worst crime that anyone can accuse someone of is having a political opinion and being stupid enough to text it on "company" phones, at least introducing the appearance of bias.

If we trotted out FBI agents who were in favor of Trump and disliked Hillary (obviously such people exist), but no evidence that they actually did anything wrong, would that prove that Comey intentionally spoke about the Hillary investigation to help Trump?

Is there more to it, or is it just noise to try to get attention at this point?

[swake]

Okay, so it appears everyone agrees that there was no evidence presented or conclusion reached that any political opinion influenced the actions of the FBI.  Everyone agrees that the FBI agents expressed a political opinion opposed to Trump.

So the disagreement is how we receive the information:

- Heironymous is saying that the conclusion stands at face value.  There was no evidence or conclusion that the personal bias of the FBI agents influenced any action or decision. The decisions reached and actions taken were all rational and within protocol.

- erfalf is saying that the investigation failed to prove the negative (saying there is no evidence or conclusion is not saying that bias had no influence), so therefore it remains a possibility that rational decisions were still influenced by bias.


I remain really confused. Everyone seems to agree that there is no evidence indicating the FBI did anything inappropriate.  The probe has already resulted in indictments and guilty pleas. Trump won the electoral college and is the sitting President.  The worst crime that anyone can accuse someone of is having a political opinion and being stupid enough to text it on "company" phones, at least introducing the appearance of bias.

If we trotted out FBI agents who were in favor of Trump and disliked Hillary (obviously such people exist), but no evidence that they actually did anything wrong, would that prove that Comey intentionally spoke about the Hillary investigation to help Trump?

Is there more to it, or is it just noise to try to get attention at this point?

The fake sound and fury over the FBI and DOJ is setting the basis for Trump to fight his eventual impeachment in the court of public opinion.

[erfalf]

Okay, so it appears everyone agrees that there was no evidence presented or conclusion reached that any political opinion influenced the actions of the FBI.  Everyone agrees that the FBI agents expressed a political opinion opposed to Trump.

So the disagreement is how we receive the information:

- Heironymous is saying that the conclusion stands at face value.  There was no evidence or conclusion that the personal bias of the FBI agents influenced any action or decision. The decisions reached and actions taken were all rational and within protocol.

- erfalf is saying that the investigation failed to prove the negative (saying there is no evidence or conclusion is not saying that bias had no influence), so therefore it remains a possibility that rational decisions were still influenced by bias.


I remain really confused. Everyone seems to agree that there is no evidence indicating the FBI did anything inappropriate.  The probe has already resulted in indictments and guilty pleas. Trump won the electoral college and is the sitting President.  The worst crime that anyone can accuse someone of is having a political opinion and being stupid enough to text it on "company" phones, at least introducing the appearance of bias.

If we trotted out FBI agents who were in favor of Trump and disliked Hillary (obviously such people exist), but no evidence that they actually did anything wrong, would that prove that Comey intentionally spoke about the Hillary investigation to help Trump?

Is there more to it, or is it just noise to try to get attention at this point?

Basically at this point, it is never going to be "wrong" for an agent to not pursue an investigation. I mean, there are only so many man hours available so looking the other way is not inappropriate per se. Putting additional man hours and investigative effort into the Trump investigation isn't "inappropriate" be definition, but was it really the highest and best use or resources, or an attempt to play out a couple of people's biases? Nothing he did was illegal. It obviously casts a pretty big shadow over his credibility, which is somewhat important at this juncture where we still have yet to see any connections made to the Trump campaign of any meaningful crime. All my opinion only obviously.